Feature Stories, Weblog & Reports

(Phys.org) —Is it possible that a moving object could have zero energy? The common sense answer is no, since motion itself is kinetic energy, but this answer has been challenged recently by the concept ...

(Phys.org)—Throughout her career, the famous biologist Lynn Margulis (1938-2011) argued that the world of microorganisms has a much larger impact on the entire biosphere—the world of all living things—than ...

(Phys.org) —By using voltage-generated stress to switch between two magnetic states, researchers have designed a new non-volatile memory with extremely high energy efficiency—about two orders of magnitude ...

(Phys.org)—Superconductivity – perhaps the leading example of emergent quantum behavior in matter – was discovered in 1911 but lacked theoretical explanation for almost five decades. In 1957, John Bardeen, ...

(Phys.org) —Controlling the propagation of high-intensity light beams as they travel through air (or other transparent media) is a challenging task, but scientists have now shown that a relatively new type ...

The peculiar way that an inchworm inches along a surface may not be fast compared to using legs, wings, or wheels, but it does have advantages when it comes to maneuvering in small spaces. This is one of ...

(Phys.org) —Light striking the retina in the back of the eye is the first major step in the vision process. But when the photoreceptors in the retina degenerate, as occurs in macular degeneration, the retina ...

(Phys.org)—The world of rechargeable batteries is full of trade-offs. While lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are currently the most commercially successful, their low energy density doesn't allow for a long ...

(Phys.org)—Magnetic levitation has been demonstrated for a variety of objects, from trains to frogs, but so far no one has developed a practical maglev-based actuator that converts some external source ...

(Phys.org) —Smart windows have the ability to become darker or lighter in response to the brightness and heat of sunlight, offering the potential to greatly reduce heating and cooling costs, among other ...

(Phys.org) —The recently discovered Higgs boson is best known for its important role in explaining particle mass. But now some physicists are wondering if the Higgs could have played an equally significant ...

(Phys.org) —Eyes are said to be a mirror to the soul, but they may also be a mirror to the surrounding world. Researchers have found that our eyes reflect the people we're looking at with high enough resolution ...

Although the concept of "steering" in quantum mechanics was proposed back in 1935, it is still not completely understood today. Steering refers to the ability of one system to nonlocally affect, or steer, ...

(Phys.org) —While scientists have become increasingly convinced that the Standard Model of particle physics is incomplete, it's still unclear exactly how the Standard Model needs to be extended. Experiments ...